Google raised reward for its Chromium bug hunters

Where Facebook has given out over $1 million to those who poke holes into its system for the purpose of bug fixing, Google so far has spent over $2 million in its bug bounty program since its launch three years ago. And that’s not it – it really, really wants you to further keep hacking its software – for good!

Google last week has announced to raise the reward for bug hunters for its Chromium Vulnerability Rewards program to $5000 for those previously rated at $1000.

Talking of the hike in rewards, Google said that in many cases, this will be a 5x increase in reward. The company will pay higher reward to hackers who will provide accurate analysis of “exploitability and severity” of bugs that are believed to be presenting a higher risk/threat to its users.

Since the launch of the program Google has rewarded researchers for reporting more than 2,000 security issues in Chromium and its Web applications.

Moreover, the company has not limited the fun by making it just a means of earning hard cash, it rather has positioned the program as more of a competition between hackers. Check out its Hall of Fame list for all the hot-shots. Judging from the list, a small elite of researchers seems to be already making a decent living from the rewards.

However, the increase in prize also poses a hint to fewer submission of bugs by people – which might have pushed Google to do so. Whatever’s the reason behind, the increase in bounty would definitely put a grin on the faces of all those bug hunters out there.

I am Dev, a New Delhi, India, based travel blogger and photographer. Shortly after my first nine to five job, I left that lifestyle behind, and with that everything that didn't fit in my backpack. It has been more than two years now since I've quit my job to travel, and during the process I've learned that this world is too big and interesting to stay at once place.